Electrical switching devices are well known in the field of high voltage switching applications. They are e.g. used for interrupting a current when an electrical fault occurs. As an example for an electrical switching device, circuit breakers have the task of opening contacts and keeping them far apart from one another in order to avoid a current flow, even in case of high electrical potential originating from the electrical fault itself. For the purposes of this document the term high voltage refers to voltages higher than 72.5 kV and the term medium voltage refers to voltages between 1 kV and 72.5 kV. The electrical switching devices, like the circuit breakers, may have to be able to carry high nominal currents of 5000 A to 6300 A and to switch very high short circuit currents of 63 kA to 80 kA at very high voltages of 550 kV to 1200 kV.
Because of the high nominal current, the electrical switching devices of today require many so-called contact fingers for the nominal current. When disconnecting a nominal current within the electrical switching devices, the current commutates from the nominal contacts of the electrical switching device to its arcing contacts.